


Vibrant

by orphan_account



Series: A World of Color [2]
Category: Free!
Genre: A lot - Freeform, M/M, Mako-centric, Promise, Soulmate AU, a world of color but from makoto's pov, but i think i lied, happy fluffy ending though, i promised it would be mostly fluff, it just focuses on one section of it, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-18
Updated: 2014-05-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 12:57:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1649444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Makoto has always been willing to shelf his own feelings and ignore that he is in love with his best friend. But is that really possible when they're soul mates? (Companion piece to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1569854">A World of Color</a> ).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vibrant

Complaisant.

That was the word!

Makoto was seventeen years old, and already complaisant with his life. Most people might be okay with that, with having some sense of (boring) routine, but Makoto was starting to feel as though he shouldn’t be.

But how selfish was that? Seventeen years old, and he’d found his soul mate thirteen years ago. For nearly fourteen years, life had been a beautiful, colorful existence. Some people would go their whole lives never even finding their soul mate. But Makoto had found his before he could even read.

So what was wrong? He and Haru were best friends. They practically read each other’s minds and many of their schoolmates were jealous of the relationship they had.

Yet maybe that was the problem.

Sinking into his bed on a Friday afternoon, Makoto held his phone in his hands, willing it to chime with a phone call, a text, an email, anything. Haru had been acting strangely after the relay, and Makoto wasn’t sure what to do anymore. Their friendship with Rin had been fixed, and Makoto thought that Haru would finally feel free again. Yet here Makoto sat, clutching his phone and wishing, just a tiny, little bit, that Haru would…

Would what? They were best friends—soul mates; what more did Makoto want?

An image of Nagisa and Rei holding hands flashed through his mind and he felt his jaw clench and his heart thud almost painfully.

That was the problem.

Makoto knew exactly what he wanted, but he was too complaisant to do anything about it. He knew he loved Haru and that he wanted to be the kind of soul mates that were more than just friends… But he valued that friendship more than anything else. Even more than his own feelings.

God, he was such a clichéd, lovesick teenager.

And as unruffled as Makoto usually was about everything, that fact really bugged the hell out of him. He always wanted to be the strong older brother, the one that took care of other people. Not the scaredy-cat gentle giant that hid behind his smaller best friend at unexpected noises while walking home after swim practice.

Another glance at his phone confirmed what he already knew—why would Haru, who hardly ever even had his phone with him, call Makoto? The only reason he would is if it were an emergency, and Makoto knew that he would find Haru at his front door if it were a real emergency (but emergency was loosely defined anyways as Haru considered waiting for mackerel a serious emergency).

So lying on his bed, heart aching and unwilling to do anything about it, Makoto set his phone aside and looked out his window.

The sky didn’t look as blue today.

//

He’d caught the flu, and it was absolutely miserable. Hot, achy, and sweating up a storm, Makoto rolled over in his bed and groaned as he pressed his face into his pillow. That was hot too.

Another groan escaped him and he felt utterly pathetic. But no one was home, and with how horrible he felt, Makoto decided he deserved a little pity party. He’d caught the flu, he was missing a math test today, his head was pounding, all of his friends were madly in love with someone, and he had—well, no, he had someone. It just didn’t feel the same as everyone else’s someone’s.

Was this how soul mates were supposed to work? He knew that it didn’t guarantee you a lover, but shouldn’t it? Shouldn’t your soul mate be someone that you gave your everything to? It felt unfair. To have someone out there that was so perfect for you that the world suddenly burst into color when you found them, only to see those colors become flat when you realized that this would be the kind of soul mate that wasn’t interested in anything other than a platonic relationship.

It hurt. So, so much. How could it be fair to have someone in the world that was supposed to complete you, and yet, even after finding them, you still feel a little empty?

Normally, Makoto never let these thoughts get out of hand; after all, he was usually perfectly content with his friendship with Haru.

But he loved him. And sometimes, when you love someone, it makes you selfish. And you try and try to hold it back and to be completely selfless for them because you love them, but god, it just doesn’t always work.

And fourteen years is a long time to hold it back.

A surge of anger coursed through Makoto and gave him some energy to sit up and irritably toss his pillow over to reach the cool side. Flopping back down on it, he was met with an increase in his headache and a quick return to feeling miserable.

//

Some people never married their soul mates. They were still closely intertwined, with pieces of their souls unable to escape from each other. But you could have a soul mate, and still marry someone else. You could have a soul mate and fall in love with someone else.

In some ways, soul mates were really screwed up. They were supposed to guarantee you everything, and yet some people were left with their lives being torn into multiple pieces because their soul mate wasn’t their everything; one piece of you was given to your soul mate, another to your love, more to your family, and soon, what was left to keep for yourself?

Makoto wondered sometimes if he would be left with anything at all.

//

The day dawned gray and dreary, the sound of rain tapping on the roof and tinkling into puddles on the street outside. It definitely felt like a Monday. But Makoto’s flu had been gone for a week now, and he needed to get up and get ready for school. Haru had been difficult while Makoto was sick, and Makoto knew that if he wasn’t there to pull Haru out of the bath today, Nanase Haruka would be absent from school. Again.

After a quick bath and breakfast, Makoto found himself opening his umbrella and trudging out into the rain.

The short walk made him glad that Haru lived so close, but the rain started falling even more heavily so he opted to go straight for the back door to get out of the cold. The house was quiet, and Makoto sighed, realizing his friend must still be in the bath.

But Makoto didn’t have it in him to be annoyed with Haru—he’d known him (and understood him) for too long. Smiling fondly at the eccentricities of his friend, he slid the bathroom door open and looked at the man he’d been in love with for so long.

“C’mon Haru, time to get out,” he said softly, extending his hand like always. Haru sat still, looking at Makoto’s proffered hand as if it were a question on an English test. Slowly though, the dark lines of his brows that had been drawn together in—what, confusion? This was nothing new —relaxed and Haru took Makoto’s hand.

When he finally made eye contact, Makoto’s heart nearly stopped. Had Haru’s eyes always been this particular shade of blue? To explain the difference would be like explaining music to a person who had been deaf their whole life. Was it possible?

Whatever the difference, it distracted Makoto so that he almost didn’t notice the slight squeeze that Haru gave him.

Almost.

The gentle pressure caused a tendril of heat to bloom in his chest and quickly spread throughout his body, centralizing in the hand that grasped Haru’s. Something was changing. 

//

“Haru-chan—” an annoyed glance made Makoto pause to suppress down a laugh before continuing, “are you alright?”

Haru stopped and turned to look at Makoto. He didn’t respond, but Makoto didn’t want mind reading today. He hardly ever pushed Haru, but today he needed words. Instead of elaborating further, Makoto squeezed the hand that was currently entwined with Haru’s and then raised it between them. Haru still didn’t answer, but Makoto stayed quiet, his eyes momentarily following the up and down movement of Haru’s adam’s apple as he swallowed.

“Do you… Not want this?” There was no change in his face, but Makoto had never felt that Haru had even been so open with him.

“Haru…” Was that all it was? Was Makoto the one who was holding back, when this may have been what he’d been waiting for? “That’s not what I’m saying. I’m just wondering, why?”

Silence was his only response. Haru’s blue eyes inspected their raised hands, his eyes shimmering like ocean waves moving back and forth with the tide. There was a time when they were children that Makoto couldn’t stand to look into Haru’s eyes, not when they reminded him so much of the ocean that took his friend. It didn’t take long for him to finally look at him though, because after too long—

“It felt empty without you.”

Moss green met ocean blue, the land and the sea colliding as two melded into one.

Makoto had been wrong. He had never needed words with Haru, and he hadn’t even needed them now. Pressing their foreheads together, he saw all he’d ever needed to know looking right back at him. 

They were two parts of a whole, and he’d been trying to be both parts when he didn’t need to.

//

While it still bothered him that because of soul mates, some people would be twisted about and their lives pulled apart into multiple pieces, Makoto had to admit that he had never felt so full.

Before that drab Monday, he had always given, and given, and given until he was sure there would be nothing left but the smile he had screwed on his face. But now, oh, now, Makoto could feel the pieces of his soul that were sewn into Haru’s, each strand a different color that brightened his world and kept the two of them close together. There was no part of Makoto that wasn’t Haru’s now. But that was okay.

Every string that wove the fabric of Haru’s soul was also tightly entwined within Makoto. It was almost like the colors that they saw came from each other, a vibrant source of beauty that emanated from within them and bled outward into the surrounding world. Everything was touched by it, if only because they had found each other.

And the pigments that painted the earth had never seemed so vibrant.

**Author's Note:**

> First, thank you so, soooo much for the wonderful response to A World of Color! I'm really loving this AU, and after doing this from Makoto's perspective, I'm really interested in continuing and doing versions for Rin/Ai, and maybe even Rei/Nagisa. 
> 
> Second, sorry if this is poorly written. I didn't edit it, and I don't have a beta, so sorrysorrysorry for any mistakes.
> 
> Also, I hope this (at least the ending! I know at the beginning I was getting pretty angsty) was fluffy enough to make up for the ending of AWoC.
> 
> Love you all <3 :)


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